Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerU.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, shown in a 2011 file photo, joined other lawmakers today in calling for steep toll hikes to be delayed until an audit of the Port Authority is complete.

FORT LEE — U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) joined with members of the state Legislature a few hundred feet from the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee this morning and called on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to delay toll hikes planned for later this year until an audit is completed and reforms are put in place.

The lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman, said tolls should stay unchanged until an external audit determines that the Authority has addressed deficiencies highlighted during an independent review of the Authority earlier this year.

That review, completed in February by an Illinois-based consulting firm, led to a scathing report in February that branded the agency "dysfunctional" and recommended financial reforms.

“New Jersey commuters shouldn't continue to pay the price for the Port Authority’s dysfunction,” Lautenberg said this morning.

The planned toll hikes, scheduled for December, would raise peak driving time tolls to $10.25 for E-ZPass users and to $13 for cash customers..

Tolls rose last year from $8 to $9.50 for E-ZPass users and to $12 for cash customers and, according to a Port Authority timeline, would again climb every year through 2015.

Lautenberg last week sent a letter to Authority Chairman David Samson and also signed by Rothman and U.S. Reps. Albio Sires and Bill Pascrell Jr. saying that an audit also should address whether “the planned level of toll hikes is still necessary in light of any new reforms.”

“The toll hike proposal by the Port Authority is wrong and undeserved. Local commuters can’t afford to be footing the bill for years of mismanagement and cost overruns by the Port Authority,” Rothman said this morning.

This morning, Lautenberg and Rothman were also joined by State Senators Loretta Weinberg and Robert Gordon and Assemblywomen Valerie Vainieri Huttle and Connie Wagner in calling for a delay in the planned toll hikes.